Turn Me Tender Again
by SapSorrow
Summary: My version of the way things were - cause we know they love each other really - seriously Sweenett. Updated!
1. My Broken Spirit I bring To You

Turn Me Tender Again

**Turn Me Tender Again**

**Part 1: My Broken Spirit I Bring To You**

_"It's happened again, the colourless sky_

_Has dimmed me again and I've run out of why -_

_And the pledge and vow is you find if you seek_

_But what if you try and find nothing but bleak?_

_Yet you're still my cryptic and cherishing prayer_

_With serenity, kisses that soothe and repair -_

_So turn me tender again, fold me into you_

_Turn me tender again and mould me to new_

_Faith lost its promise and bruised me deep blue_

_Turn me tender again through a union with you._

_And laments have a purpose and laments have a cost_

_A requiem playing gathers the lost_

_It sometimes tastes sour the sweetness of hope_

_When the blizzards are raging on this lovers slope_

_Yet I don't want to freeze inside or out_

_For it's you that dissolves these cold walls of doubt."_

_So turn me tender again, fold me into you_

_Turn me tender again and mould me to new_

_Faith lost its promise and bruised me deep blue_

_Turn me tender again through a union with you._

_Chapter 1; My Broken Spirit I Bring To You_

**Todd:**

It was a deep dark blue outside when he realised that she loved him.

It hadn't taken long - and really he should have seen it straight away. But he had been so prepared for her not to even like him any more. And, after all, he had hardly got over the shock of seeing her again, so like she had always been - but then so different. He wondered if she had always been so crazy and he just hadn't noticed. Had her eyes always been so wide and wild and trembling? Had she always been so dangerous - so soft, so firm, so hungry, so...intoxicating? His mind had almost collapsed with it. He had almost turned straight back out the door. It was too familiar; it all rushed back at him too quickly - sitting here, right here, with her just there. She gave him no time, she was too quick for him, a startled bird he could never quite catch - before he knew it she was feeding him pie and chattering at him like she had always done.

When she led him through the shop to the room beyond he had almost felt angry. Did she do this with every strange man who walked through the door? He felt a surge of anger, even jealousy at the thought that she might allow to just anyone what he had craved so painfully and so silently for so long. The whore. The damned little whore, when had she become such a slut? Or had she always been and he had been too foolish and too gentlemanly to notice?

He had frowned, confused with himself. What did it matter to him how many men she had had? Why did he care to think he had a prior claim on her? What she did with that shameless, whorish, gorgeous little body of hers was her own business and meant nothing to him. Nevertheless, he had thrown his coat down abruptly, rudely, staking out her territory as his own, tense with the urge to mark her instantly as his, now that he could.

He had cried out against what had happened to Lucy because so strong a part of him had been glad that she was gone, dead and buried with her husband. So he had known what to say on hearing her speak that name which was no longer his.

"No. Not Barker. That man is dead. S'Todd now. Sweeney Todd."

He had looked at her closely, if not for long enough to let her know - terribly afraid that she would not like Sweeney Todd. he had been afraid of it ever since that man or beast, whatever he was, had been born. Maybe she would hate him - know him for what he now was and fear and despise him.

He had grown good at reading people and in her wide eyes he saw that she did know what he had become and feared but didn't despise him. In fact, if anything, he fancied he saw recognition flicker deep in those lovely eyes, speaking more eloquently than she really could, welcoming home a creature she had known even before he did.

Fifteen years. Fifteen bloody years of guilty lusting after a woman he had assumed he could never really have. Now she stood so close he could feel her breath on his neck, feel her bosom heave to touch him, warm in her hand, smell her and tingle with the warm, fluid ease with which her body bent towards him -

He could not face her. He had wanted her too long to allow it to be easy. There was something half shy in her fidgety movements, her voice so quick, trying too hard to sound casual -

"Nothing to be afraid of, love" -

Something pleading in her eyes, asking for a scrap of his heart -

"Could have sold them - but I didn't."

Was he just being mercenary the think that she must have loved him all this time, not to have done so? Suffering for him as he had suffered for her. He wondered if he could have survived if he had imagined he might never see her again, and felt perhaps he understood a little better the madness in her eyes. He almost pitied her - and that was good - pity could turn easily to disgust, to superiority. A superiority he needed to feel if he was ever to possess her as he ached to do.

There was so much he wanted to do to her. Fifteen years worth of imaginings, longings and plans. he hardly even knew where to start. He would drown if he looked at her and so he did not. Her love, that he had dreamt of so hopelessly, was given so easily that it frightened him - everything he had come back for given to him on the first day of his returning. he did not want to see, did not want to have to admit to happiness or to a feeling he had never truly known before. not like this. He had asked her to leave and seen the sweet submissive hurt with which she instantly obeyed him and heard his demon growl within him in response, in pleasure at her pain. And he knew that he could hurt her, could use her love to avoid his own, could have power over her and possess her completely and utterly until he no longer knew her from himself and so could become her and no longer this wretched beast who hungered for her - but something that he delighted in, something that he loved.

This is the first part of a really long fic I've been writing , later chapters of which will be seriously M rated. If enough people like it I will post more soon!


	2. Dreaming of You

Just to remind/ warn you this section is M rated for some seriously wet dreams

**Just to remind/ warn you this section is M rated for some seriously wet dreams!**

**Turn Me Tender Again**

**Part 2**

**Dreaming of You**

**Lovett:**

For a moment there she really had thought that she had seen a ghost. And she had known whose ghost too. Terror had flashed briefly in her eyes at the recurrence of that old nightmare; the one that had started out as a dream but had plagued her steadily into madness.

Yes, she had known him from the first, but it had been so hard. More than just hard; she had given him up for dead soon after the dreams had died away and with him had gone the last trace of her that she could have called good or sane.

For she had loved him even then, and had never tried to deny it to herself. Not Barker – she had been fond of him, yes, dearly, but she had loved the real man more than what he had tried to be to please his wife – maybe even to please himself.

Well, after all, she had never expected that she would fall in love with anybody ordinary, not even, necessarily, someone quite human. She often wondered if she hadn't just built up an ideal of him out of a few flickers in the eye of someone else – someone who was really, underneath, nothing more than a disappointingly good man after al. But to see him now she knew that it had not been so.

When he introduced himself, for so it must have been to him, she had done no more than incline her head slightly in acceptance. It had been like learning the name of someone you had known intimately for some time – so much so that you had never needed to ask. Sweeney Todd then, welcome home my love, at last. She wondered if it was wrong to be half glad that he had said that Barker was dead – for it meant that she could say the same of Lucy. It meant that the man she loved had survived. It meant that she could say he had come home to her and her alone.

For Sweeney Todd had always been hers, though he may not have known it.

Did she presume too much in offering him "Splendours you never have dreamed"? She wondered if he heard and understood what she meant. Wondered that she should feel slightly strange at offering herself so soon – it wasn't as though he was the first with whom she had done so. But it had been some time now; ever since she had baulked at the coldness of those random couplings that failed to fill the whole his absence had left. Sometimes she wondered if that hole hadn't been hollowed out of her brain as well, being filled and rotted further every day with gin.

Did she presume that he then could find any joy in someone he did not love, or did she dare to think that perhaps he did – or at least could – love her now? She didn't know. And after all, maybe he had had those dreams too – but she doubted it, pushing the thought away with painful practicality. No. he hardly even looked at her.

She hurt with not telling him the full truth about those razors, that he handled so lovingly, with a gaze of such delight. How she had rescued them, not from the authorities as she had said, but from Lucy, who she had caught taking them to sell, to pay the rent. How she had snapped at her to forget the fucking rent, later hiding the set beneath the floor boards while Lucy was out, knowing that she would not look for them twice. How, really there had been plenty of takers for the room when it lay empty but that she had been unable to rent it out, keeping it, despite everything, in the hope that he would one day, somehow come back. Or keeping it as a shrine to him – and that she wouldn't have admitted, even to herself.

How again, so often while he was away, she had come up here to look at them. Guiltily admiring each one – feeling she was trespassing a little into his life. She wondered if he would be angry to know it; how she had kept them polished, checking the catches and replacing the velvet in the box. Apparently he hadn't noticed and she had feigned awe at the beauty of the shine in the blades; the only time she had ever pretended anything to him.

She had ached for him when she left him that evening. Ached with a strange jealousy towards those figures carved into the silver, the way he had caressed them with those beautiful, long fingered hands. Dreaming, as she drifted into sleep, of those hands upon her own body – dreaming of being his razor.

**Todd:**

"Will you be alright then Mr T?" she asked that first night, lingering half nervously in the doorway, as he settled into his chair. He could sleep there as well as anywhere, but wondered what else she might have had in mind. He wanted so much to say no, to take her and fuck her with all the force of fifteen years of wanting her - and then settle down to sleep in her arms. He wanted so badly to touch her, taste her, beat her, rape her - find out if all those fantasies even came close to the real delight of her body.

"Yes" he rasped, gruffly, and turned his face away. He heard the door click to softly, but didn't need to know that she had gone, taking with her all the warmth she radiated. Still, the soft scent of her lingered in the room and he groaned aloud with it.

He had suffered, damn it, so why shouldn't she? Like hell was he going to give her what she wanted the instant he arrived! Besides, The longer he waited the more violently he would give in when he finally took her; the more he could hurt her with it. Maybe she would like that? The idea filled him with a grim sort of pleasure.

He knew how sound carried in these buildings and bit back his cries as he fucked her hard in his mind, before drifting fretfully into a broken sleep.

He dreamt. For the first time in fifteen years, a dream that was not black and red and back- breakingly aching. He dreamt that he awoke to find this room as it had always been, dusky though, in candlelight, and the chair where it was now; staining the room's rosy perfection. And his wife, kneeling over him in the chair, her hair unbound, falling over his face in soft fiery waves - it really was his wife, but it was her - his tormentor, whispering words he could not hear though he saw her lips move with dream - like slowness. She pressed those lips against his, her skin warm and silvery - gold in the dream light. He moaned at her touch but could not move. He could only watch as she slowly undressed, smiling, revealing breasts as perfect as he had always imagined, her nipples hard and ripe, begging him to bite at them.

Suddenly the dream skewed sideways and in the shift he was now on top of her on the floor, ripping feverishly at the last of her clothes. His razor had appeared in his hand, pressed hard against her throat. her beautiful eyes were deep dark pits, and she writhed beneath him like a snake. His fingers raked into her lovely flesh, cutting more deeply and sharply than they really could. He had razor blades for nails, and she was crying out, whimpering softly;

"Please Mr T, you're hurting me"

"Good" he growled, unspeakable hard against her helpless little form. He kissed her savagely and there was blood in her mouth, driving him insane with the rich, hot taste of her. The instant he plunged his suffering prick into her she broke apart like glittering dust in a shower of flowers and flaming rain.

He awoke with a cry, spilling helplessly into his trousers with a shuddering moan. It took him a moment to realise where he was and that she was standing over him, gently shaking his shoulder to wake him. He started into wakefulness, ashamed and angry.

"Brought you breakfast love" she said.

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time, let me know if you want me to continue, the next part will be where it really gets going!**


	3. Giving In

**Disclaimer: The Song "Turn Me Tender" is not mine, it belongs to Martyn Joseph. While I'm at it Todd and Lovett are not mine either!**

**Warning: This section is pretty much just porn so if you don't like that sort of thing please don't read and if you do please enjoy!**

**Chapter 3; Giving In**

**Todd:**

The last thing he wanted, he told himself, was to make her happy. How could he even have strayed so far from his purpose as to let his thoughts take these turns?

It was the look in her eyes that afternoon when he'd had her in the chair with the blade at her throat, a look he had comfortably taken at the time for fear.

It hadn't been fear. At least, not only that. It had nagged at him for the rest of the day. It had nagged at him when he had slit the first man's throat, sharpening the pleasure of the act. It had nagged at him as he tried to soak the blood out of his shirt afterwards, knowing it would never be quite the same again but trying nonetheless. And it troubled him now as he sat at her table by the window, the way her eyes, so dark, like swirling skies filled with stars, had burned up at him, in fear yes, but also in lust.

He watched her across the room when he knew she wasn't looking. He knew when she wasn't because usually she was. He saw the way her eyes kept sliding back to him when she thought he wasn't looking. He wondered how she dared to let her feeling show so plainly in her face in so unwomanly a manner. And yet too womanly perhaps. He was surprised to find that she almost frightened him and delighted in the sensation.

Yet more delightful still was the hurt he saw when she looked away, afraid that he would see. He understood now that the apparent vacancy in his face, the distant brooding that showed him to ignore her utterly, was hurting her terribly. So he kept it up, enjoying her pain.

They continued in silence as the day darkened and the rain began to drum a stressful beat on the window outside, seeping in through the cracks. A passer by may have been struck by the apparent coldness between the man who sat glaring by the window and the woman attacking pastry at the table across the room as though it was that alone which was to blame for her frustration.

Finally she broke the silence and he noticed for the first time the effort it took her to smile and to make her voice as light as she could.

"Fancy a pie, Mr. T.?"

He glared at her and said nothing, unable to explain his sudden rush of anger at her apparently innocent question. She must have seen him looking! Had she noticed - how his eyes had travelled her face and down over the smoothness of her neck. Had she noticed the rising lust in his eyes; how he had ached throughout at the paleness of her throat, how vulnerable it was, the veins trembling just beneath the skin almost begging him to slice them. How he had been strumming the blade he toyed with gently against his leg, thinking, not of revenge but of drowning in her blood. And could she have been made happy by such knowledge? He was furious, watching how her breasts had heaved when she spoke (did she even know?), telling himself it was disgust that stirred within him, nothing more. Realising that even as he had convinced himself of utter disdain for the way she pretended not to watch him, he had been doing exactly the same, and that the discomfort he felt was not derision after all, but a thing far more easily removed.

His anger was the kick to move, unable to pretend any longer, angry even at the sad acceptance of his disdain with which she had turned away. And so she hardly knew he had moved until he had seized her from behind, one hand digging into the top of her arm and the other holding the razor to her throat once again.

He wanted her terribly. He could admit that now that he had her, even if he would not do so to her. He needed her painfully and had done so from the first. It was not merely the past that had drawn him back to this place, but her. He had stood there on the street, looking over at the shop, ready to turn away from that place and all the memories it contained, then he had seen her there in the window, just as she had always been. This moment had been there, waiting in the dark in his mind. from the first moment he had seen her, like a witch at work. And he knew that she could feel his lust, hard against her, and that her eyes would be shining with delight. But he didn't have to let her like it. The need to hurt her was almost stronger than the need to have her. To make her cry, to beg him for mercy she knew he wouldn't show. To make her scream and scream. She loved him too much. He didn't deserve it. He would make her want him less if only he could hurt her enough, and god, how he would enjoy hurting her!

She trembled in his arms, so soft and so warm he could hardly bear it, he buried his face in her hair drinking in the scent of her and dug his nails into her flesh so cruelly she would have bruises in the morning. She whimpered softly, afraid to move against the cold blade at her throat.

"Hush my love" he snarled against her ear, "Save your breath for screaming, you'll need it."

He trailed the blade down her throat gently, enough to slice the skin, leaving a crimson trail across the milk-white of her throat. Enough to make her cry out gently but not enough to make her scream, not yet. Her cry made him need her too much now to hurt her as much as he would have liked, and pushing the blade beneath her bodice he ripped it apart, spilling her breasts like water into his hands. He kissed her throat as he injured them, sending flowers of fire burning through her.

Her legs turned to water and, slippery in his hands, they gave and she sank to the filthy floor of the shop. That she gazed up at him, her arms outstretched, was all the excuse he needed to kick her savagely, again and again until she started to sob. Only then did he kneel over her, take her face in his hands and kiss her, tasting her tears, swallowing her sobs and delighting in their taste, his hands exploring her body, with the razor held gently in his fingers, cutting her carelessly, its caress almost, if not quite, as vicious as his own, but keeping her weeping even as her tongue fought with his. But not for long. Unable to bear it any longer he pushed her back, his hands sliding between her legs which opened for him so easily that he sneered at her in contempt, enjoying the hurt that flickered briefly in her eyes, turned almost black now with lust. He shuddered to think how he must look to her and pushed the thought away as his hands trembled on the fastenings of his trousers. He was agonisingly hard now and smiled to see her eyes widen. He could hardly enter her quickly enough, and her scream of agony at that first cruel thrust was all he could have dreamt and more. However much she had wanted this, it had been some time and she was so deliciously tight that he knew her suffering must be great. He looked into her face as he pounded into her, drinking in her pain with every brutal thrust. Her eyes brimmed with agony and ecstasy together as he fucked her like a demon, regardless of her pleasure but causing it all the same as he released his own in a feral growl, shooting deep and hot inside her as her screams changed into sighs to match his own.

For a few moments they lay slumped on the floor, his prick still hard inside her as they regained their breath. He groaned gently at the realisation that it hadn't been enough, he still wanted her, more now than ever. Fucking her had not cured his desire, merely whetted it, making it sharper than a razor's edge and twice as painful now he knew how good she felt. A little sigh escaped her that betrayed her happiness, prompting him to slap her hard across the cheek. He was no longer wholly surprised when she smiled, so he hit her again. She moaned softly.

"Like it do you?" he hissed and forced a hand over her mouth so she could not reply. With the other hand he reached to the floor beside him for the razor and held it against her throat whilst he fucked her hard again. And again, and again, growling cries of lust into her ear whilst stifling her own.

He continued to use her for hour after hour, breaking off from fucking her only to rape her beautiful mouth, forcing his prick so deep into her throat as to make her choke and her eyes water, finally pulling out to come across her tearstained face.

Finally, perhaps it was midnight, the clock chimed outside, he disengaged himself, exhausted though barely sated. Her eyes too were heavy, as he turned away more steadily than he felt, leaving her on the floor in the filth, sticky with sweat and blood, the smell and taste of which lingered in his nostrils, on his tongue. He curled his lip at her in what he hoped was something of his old disdain, difficult to muster now, as something in him ached to see how beautiful she looked at this moment, barely dressed and stained with his semen. He flicked the razor casually over his shoulder and into the shreds of her skirt as though it were payment to a cheap tart. If only, he thought, he could stride off now and remain superior, not show her how much he still needed her, but -

"Bring it" he said as he headed to her room, taking possession easily now he had taken it of her. Her bed was his now, he seemed to say, as was she.

But then, as she could have told him, she always had been.


	4. Unbreak My Heart

Part 4; Unbreak My Heart

_Part 4; Unbreak My Heart_

**Lovett: **

Wait, wait, my love, can't you wait? I do. I shall. I have. So long, all this time, waiting for you. Knew you'd come home one day, come home to me, only me.

She had loved him so long now, she knew she had gone crazy with it. It didn't matter that he was someone else now, he was still the man she had loved.

There was a barber and his wife, and he was beautiful. They had lived above the shop all those years ago. How old had she been? Maybe twenty-something, she didn't quite know. Young for a widow, but not so young. But how sweet and young they were! This couple, too good for their surroundings - or she was at least. Pretty little thing, silly little nit. Made no secret of how superior she felt herself to be over the woman who, after all, owned the room they lived in. Wouldn't ever sully herself to enter the shop unless she really had to; acting like the queen of Sheba in her garret.

But he was different. Different from anyone she had ever known. Smiling and innocent, fresh and foolish. He had spoken to her like she was a lady. The dear boy. Not a bit like his wife he wasn't, often coming in for a pie (they had been better back then), sometimes not even. Sometimes just to talk. More and more she found him coming in of evenings after a hard day, not wanting to burden his dear wife. Seeking comfort in pies and ale and warming himself in her eyes. Such a helpless thing. She found herself enjoying his company, growing almost fond of him.

She wondered at the two of them. On the one hand they seemed so close, his eyes would sparkle when he spoke of his wife and she could see the way he looked at her, as though the sun shone out of her - eyes. More and more it had started to hurt her; at first she had hardly known why -

On the other hand, noises travelled far too easily in this house and there had been nights when she had lain awake listening to the - marital relations, taking place upstairs. Not many nights it was true and she had felt no guilt in listening - rather pity. She had hardly known the act could be so repressed and wondered, looking back, if she had ever heard a peep out of the girl. Such a good little girl, giving into her husband maybe once a month out of duty but far too well brought up to allow herself to feel any improper pleasure in the act.

Yes, she had pitied him and wished there was something she could do to help, there was little she wouldn't have done if he had been ready to accept it. Her suspicions that he was suffering from his wife's virtue being confirmed one afternoon when Lucy had paid her an unexpected visit. She stood just inside the door, visibly turning up her nose as though the place had a bad smell. Well it did a bit but that was beside the point. Mrs. Lovett grinned to herself, how out of place the poor little thing looked, in her pretty pink dress and her pale shining hair.

"Come in for a pie, have you love?"

"No" she sniffed "I have not." She looked down, a little flustered - "But maybe - if you have a little coffee?"

Well la di da. Still, ever obliging -

"Course. You sit yourself down dearie." She noticed the way Lucy peered at the table and chairs first, suspiciously, as though expecting them to be sticky. Well maybe they were a bit but that too was beside the point. She returned with the coffee and her own mug of gin;

"Something troubling you pet?"

The girl looked into her coffee and blushed. A real treasure this one was.

"Mrs. Lovett - " she began falteringly - "I know we don't know each other very well - but I wonder if you could help me -" she blushed harder "You see - it's my husband - he keeps - that is - pestering me -"

She took a swig of gin wondering if her look of Am-I-hearing-this? On her face was as obvious as it felt.

"I don't mean usually" Lucy stammered on, "Usually he's ever so sweet, it's just - oh gosh - oh dear - I don't know how to -"

"It's alright pet, I know exactly what you mean"

"You do? Oh - " rewarding her tact with a look that made it clear she held her in utter disdain for the understanding, still she plunged on - "well you see - I hate to say no - well I mean I - but I don't want to have any more children you see and - and I mean well - it's really not proper - I mean - so - so often, is it?"

Well there was really nothing you could say to that, was there?

"Listen love" she said eventually "There's other things you can do - things as won't lead to babies if that's your wish"

"There are? - but -?"

"Oh yes" The look of horror that washed over Lucy's face as she told her, was priceless.

It was some weeks later that she was visited again. She saw that he was in a bad mood as soon as he walked through the door and could pretty much guess the reason. He had flung himself down at the table peevishly and found a glass of gin in his hand even before asking .

"Want to talk about it love?"

She sat across from him, chin in her hands, fondness in her face, that had been growing all these months into something deeper. How beautiful he was she sighed, thinking it even as he sat there. And there was something just behind his eyes, stronger now than ever. Something she had not expected, flickering, waiting. Something that burned dangerously and sent thrills shooting through her, little sparks that teased and troubled. He must have been bad, he drank the glass down.

"Get you the bottle shall I?" she smiled and set it down in front of him. he reached for it and smiled up at her as he poured. Not his usual, bouncy smile or yet the twisted grin of nowadays but something strange and strained in between. He sighed -

"Mrs. Lovett -" he shook his head "Whatever would I do without you?" she smiled, it was good to hear -

"Oh I don't know -" she said - "Whither and die?"

He chuckled just slightly, but enough, and stared into his glass, seeking reassurance in not quite the right place.

"Want to tell us about it then dearie?"

He sighed again.

"My wife" he said eventually, another glass down "I love her dearly Mrs. Lovett, you know that. But she is so very -" he scowled a little - "Virtuous".

She nodded -

"Ah-"

He took a deep breath.

"Ah indeed my pet, more gin?"

"Anything for you love".

She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't help but be happy. Happy he was here, happy he had come to her for gin and comfort, not to his wife, who gave neither. But she, she would have been more than happy to supply the "comfort" he so desperately needed. If only, if only - she pushed the thought away and plonked the second bottle down. She lingered beside him a moment wanting to - she didn't know - maybe, hug him? he answered the dilemma for her, placing a hand gently on her waist. She closed her eyes to steady herself; he was terribly unused to drink she supposed.

"Mrs Lovett -" he murmured, resting his head against her "My dear, sweet, kind, lovely Mrs Lovett, you - are quite the best of friends."

"There there Mr Barker" she sighed, quite lost, patting him gently on the head. His free arm whipped up and seized her wrist suddenly, in a manner so unlike him - but no - not unlike that look behind his eyes that shone out brightly as he rose, steadying himself with the hand now tightly on her waist, entwining his fingers in his as his eyes blazed fiercely into hers. Her heart beat frantically, so loud to her she was sure he had to hear it, if he could beneath his own. His hold on her tightened and suddenly his lips were on hers, crushing against her, kissing her hungrily, so very hungrily. Her head spun madly and nothing seemed to stay still. She hardly cared if it wasn't her he really wanted, didn't care at all about the wife upstairs, it was her he held now, whose lips he now attacked so ferociously. His hands moved upon her, more demanding, more invasively intimate than any lover she had ever known and she pressed herself against him, feeling his need, letting him know her own as he trailed hot, burning kisses over her throat and breasts; kisses that bruised, as his hands slid under her clothes, touching her like a man half - starved for contact, whimpering sighs of lust against her parted lips.

That was when she had made her fatal mistake. She had opened her eyes and caught his, which had never been closed all this time, drinking in her flesh with a thirst that no gin could quench. First he tore his eyes away from hers -

"No-" he had gasped, a wretched, strangled cry of near despair, wrenching himself away with visible effort. He had gazed at her a moment with a look of such hopeless agony as to shoot his arrow truly and fatally into her heart for good. Then he had turned on her - angrily? - and slammed out of the door. She had sunk down at the table, heart and cunt aching unbearably, and taken another swallow of gin.

He had come back in the next day, a little worse for wear but otherwise hiding once more behind the mask of Benjamin Barker. She had smiled at him as always. He had stammered a little and fiddled with his cravat.

"Love" she had greeted him (if he only knew, she sighed, how she meant it).

"I wanted to apologise, Mrs Lovett -" he mumbled, red faced "That is - for my conduct of last night - I - don't know what came over me."

"Not to worry love" - how cheerful she could make herself sound, however it saddened her to say and to think - "I'm sure it won't happen again." Make it happen again, her mind chanted, please make it happen again.

But it didn't. And only three months later he was gone. And while Lucy mourned away upstairs for Benjamin Barker, downstairs Mrs. Lovett had wept, bereft, for the man who had hidden behind him.

The man she had met for so brief a moment.

The man she loved.

The man whose name she didn't even know.

Not then.


	5. Always Morning In My Mind

Chapter 3; Always Morning In My Mind

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed previously for the encouragement to continue!**

**Just to warn you that parts of this section are a bit M rated but not many!**

**Enjoy!**

_Chapter 3; Always Morning In My Mind_

**Todd:**

Even as Benjamin Barker he had slept fitfully. As Sweeney Todd he had, as yet, felt himself lucky to catch a couple of hours a night. So he was surprised, nay a tad disoriented to find himself waking up with the dawn that morning. It filtered in, grey-gold through the grimy window and rotting lace curtains. Beginning to shake away the sleep of an almost untroubled night he began to look around him.

They were fetid surroundings though he had seen worse, the tattered remnants of a dusty dress on the floor by the bed -

- He remembered now, she had followed him soon after, letting it slip from her shoulders - already in pieces. She had paused by the bed, pale and beautiful, wantonly unashamed of her nakedness. he remembered, half guiltily, how his wife had rarely let him see her naked, always going into another room to change, blushing when he did see her, hiding herself as best she could. Was it any wonder his thoughts had strayed so often to the woman downstairs with her welcoming, sensual smile and dangerous eyes, eyes that seemed to crackle, shooting fire at him and turning his insides to water.

In fact, the only real argument they had ever had had been about her.

"I just don't like the way she looks at you" Lucy had said, timidly; for which it had been easy to read that she didn't like the way he looked at her.

"Don't know what you mean love" he had snapped back at her. It was always difficult to argue with dear Lucy, she wouldn't explain herself, just pout and sulk until he gave in.

How different, he mused, from this one. His eyes came to rest on her, curled up awkwardly beside him. She had tried to find a position that kept the bruises which blossomed over her skin from rubbing painfully against the bedsprings. He could see his own finger prints in the tender flesh of her arms and little red curves where his nails had bitten in. He closed his eyes, trying to block his mind from falling away into memory of the night before and the terrible, delightful things he had done to her. How he had enjoyed making those marks upon her skin. How she had moaned like the whore she was even as he made her scream in pain. How violently he had taken her, over and over, after wanting her for so long.

He hated her, the bitch, doing this to him; making the lust rise within him even now, as she lay, so sweetly, asleep. It was her fault, her magic that tormented him like this . He remembered his need to hurt her, to make her suffer, how she had rendered him unable to torture her as he had wished. How she had dared to take pleasure in his cruelty when he had convinced himself of the distaste he felt for causing her happiness. Well, he would have revenge. He was good at revenge.

He had kept his back to her, he remembered, when she came to bed, elbowing her sharply away when she had tried to curl up behind him. Even so he had woken up to find her in his arms, the witch. Poisoning him with desire, infecting him with insane, unnatural lusts, making him powerless to keep away from her. He drew sharply back, running his eyes over her sleeping form, of course she slept naked, the slut. He had to stifle a groan of pain and need, aching in memory and anticipation of her; watching her breast rise and fall with her breathing, trying to distinguish the bruises and bite marks from the shadows in between. He ran his right hand over her body, committing it to memory, his other entwined in her hair. He kissed her neck and shoulders, the smooth skin and jagged gashes where his nails and blades had cut into her, caressing her almost tenderly, her thighs, her hips, the smooth, hardly yet tormented softness of her arse, his mind beginning to churn with plans and ideas. His caresses grew crueller as his mind seethed - hate her, hate her, hate her, make her suffer, little bitch -

He twisted her hair tightly in his hand, red and warm, sweet as blood upon the pillow, and yanked her head back sharply, waking her with a delightful yelp of pain.

"Morning pet" he muttered, pulling her head back until the tears were squeezed out of her eyes, her scalp tingling, on fire. She murmured something between her gasps, he thought it might have been "Love", but didn't care. He pushed her onto her back, pressing hard on the tenderest, most damaged parts of her arms.

"Think I was done with you already my sweet?" he growled, "Why I've hardly begun". Her eyes were misty, still half closed and she moved slowly, still drowsy from sleep. He took advantage quickly, forcing her legs apart and shoving roughly into her, knowing that she wasn't ready for him, her sob of pain rewarding him for the knowledge.

Once begun it was hard to stop and she continued to sob as he raped her viciously, more than ready to take his pleasure from her without having to give it in return, so sudden was his attack. The soreness inside her was just giving way to pleasure when he withdrew quickly, grinned at her hellishly -

"No you don't" -

- and came across her thighs. She choked on a gasp of sluttish affront and he laughed, pushing her back where he had found her. Turning away from her, chuckling wickedly, he drifted back into contented sleep.

**Lovett:**

She was having such trouble getting back to sleep that after a short while she gave up trying. She had tossed and turned a little but it had caused her such pain as to make the ache between her legs almost unbearable. Anyway, she realised, she was quite awake now and didn't want to go back to sleep. For the first time since she could remember there was more to be gained in being awake. She smiled faintly in spite of, nay in part because of, the waves that crashed inside her, realising that she had been rubbing her thighs together all the while, trembling on the edge of dealing with the ache herself.

But she was so unsure of him still, unsure now as to whether or not he was really asleep or just lying there smirking away to himself evilly, in contemplation of her plight. She could imagine how angry he would be if she were to relieve herself thereof and, whilst the thought sent delicious shudders all through her, she still couldn't quite judge just how far she could press him. The look of lust in his eyes that so delighted her was frighteningly similar to the look of murderous intent it had replaced, that she was cautious lest the one became the other. She had no wish at all to die, not now, when she was happier, even through the fog of desire in her tingling head, than she had ever been.

She took a deep breath, drawing herself together, and got out of bed.

**Todd:**

Once she was out of bed and less close to him he felt he could risk watching her as she pulled something out of the wardrobe that was somewhat tattered though at least wearable - something white - he almost laughed, realising that all she had was her underwear and wondering if she would serve customers dressed like that. Still, she rarely failed to surprise him; he wouldn't put it past her.

He kept half an eye on her as she flitted back and forth in the kitchen, on mysterious womanly tasks. He watched with something approaching fondness, the way the weak sunlight shone through her petticoats, clearly outlining the curves beneath in watery gold, noticing the way her hair glinted in the light with little dark flames. He sighed; he simply had more important things to do today than her. The thoughtless, devious little minx! She must feel his eyes upon her and stand just like that to torment him. His eyes fell on the razor by the bed; how easy, part of him said, it would be to slit her throat with it now, to put him out of his misery, turn the white skirts red whilst he took her one last time as the life flowed out of her. Yes. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain; the thought was almost too tempting, and there was so much he had yet to do to her.

**Lovett: **

"What is that?" he sneered, when she came back through with the tray.

"Breakfast, love" she smiled, bowing her head a little, in a manner almost coy, as she placed the tray beside the bed. He raised an eyebrow at her scornfully.

"Oh now, don't tell me you don't want any" she chided "Don't eat enough by half you don't". She began to turn away uncertainly when his hand shot out, grabbing her wrist and pulling her towards him, twisting her arm with playfully sadistic delight as he did so. He threw her hard onto the bed, springing on top of her, hands buried in her hair, pulling her head back tightly.

"No my dear" he rasped, his voice thick with lust that was music to her ears. " I think you should know what I want by now."

She let out a ragged groan that contained, despite all her efforts to contain it, more longing even than pain. He removed his hands enough to bring them crashing into her face in a torrent of stinging slaps. Even so, she found herself arching her body towards him, disgusted at herself but powerless to stop. He spat at her, an "Ugh" of contempt, and moved his hands away from her, to return quickly, the razor held once more against her throat.

"Whore" he growled, punctuating his words with little nicks of the blade against her neck; "Dirty. Little. Whore. I should kill you now, what do you say my pet?" he slammed a hand against her mouth -

"No answer? Why then that must be a yes". There was real fear flickering in her eyes now. She was unsure, so very unsure of him; for all she knew he would kill her as soon as not and the knowledge of how dispensable she must be to him brought tears to her eyes where his blows did not. Yet he smiled in ecstasy at the fear in her eyes and trailed the blade down, across her skin, making her writhe and whimper shamelessly.

"Do you know what they do to whores like you my dear?" he purred in her ear, "Do you know what happens to sinful little sluts who want it far too much?" she quaked beneath his hands like claws upon her skin, unable to speak.

"There are bits, my love" he went on - "Bits as get cut off" - pressing his fingers hard just there, bringing her close to breaking, "Maybe with a razor -" trailing it dangerously over her inner thighs, barely controlling himself at the sight of true terror in her deep dark eyes.

"-Or maybe not". She watched him lean back and so suddenly come crashing down, slashing violently into her arm, penetrating twice over, pounding into her more viciously than ever as her blood flowed over the sheets and she screamed as she had never screamed before, breaking beneath him, shattering apart like glass.

**Todd:**

He lay across her, breathing deeply, face buried in the crook of her arm, licking gently at the blood that flowed from it, better, he thought wryly, than any other breakfast. He groaned in near despair to hear the clock chime for seven, knowing that there was work to be done that would keep them in different rooms for hours to come. He had to stifle a sob as he moved away from her, not only for the loss of contact but in the realisation that, for the first time, he had enjoyed causing her pleasure almost as much as causing her pain.


	6. Chapter 6 In The Chair

**Sorry about the wait! have been away but am back now and hopefully going to make up for it to you all! I hope this section reads ok, i've had to edit it rather enormously to make it a bit less M rated (honestly I have) - so it may seem a little choppy in places where i've had to black out quickly so as I can not get chucked off of ficcynet! Please review and let me know if it's still ok!**

**Enjoy!**

_Chapter 6: In The Chair_

**Lovett: **

Want you, her mind chanted, over and over like a prayer in her head, want you, need you, love you, my precious sweet, my dear; love me, love me, need me, see me - lighting candles behind her eyes that never went out.

She couldn't help it. She tried so hard and yet she still loved him so much. It still hurt though, tormenting her with questions she could not ask him. She had wanted him to want her for so long - did he, even now? Or was she just there for him, something to use until something better came along?

Yet she was happy, kneeling on the bed, gazing at him, watching him shave, his hands thrilling and fascinating her , wanting them upon her so badly. Watching his movements, so swift and sure, she trembled, thinking how easily he could have killed her at any time. And he hadn't. So he must need her a little - mustn't he?

**Todd:**

Wanted her, wanted her so badly, over and over again. Hated himself for wanting her, yes, for needing her. His hands were less sure than they should have been; it should have been her throat the blade was up against, her luscious, pale throat so warm and fragile in his hand. He groaned inwardly, so hard for her again, so afraid that she would notice and mistake lust for caring.

He could feel her staring at him, feel her liquid, whorish eyes burning into him; yet so innocent she was, somehow, like a little child. Anger rose steadily inside him at his own softness; it was almost too easy to transfer it to her.

"What are you staring at?" he spat, "Get out woman, and leave me be."

Was that a pout? She had opened her mouth to speak - how dare she? She was his - he didn't want her of course, but would have her anyway. Because he could.

He turned on her, eyes red with hate, his lips twisting into a smile of terrifying softness. He turned from the mirror, finished; a part of him wanting to smash it into her lovely face and dig the pieces into her flesh. But he advanced on her gently before crushing her throat in his hand and shoving her against the wall.

"Oh my dear Mrs. Lovett" he sighed venomously, pinning her to the wall and caressing her gently whilst battering her with words; "Whatever were you thinking my pet? Did you think perhaps that I might care for you? Indulge little dreams of you and me? Imagine that you meant something to me - anything at all?" Tears brimmed in her eyes, rendering them more beautiful than ever. He spat in her face and flung her aside. "You're nothing to me, remember that. Nothing. My whore that's all; a little thing for me to use until something better comes along. Now get out of my sight."

He realised that he was throwing her out of her own room and had known that she would go. He heard her sobbing in the room beyond and seethed. He wanted only to use her, wanted her to fight it. Wanted to rape her, really rape her, whilst she fought and cried and begged for him to stop. He delighted in the power he had over her, marred only by his inability to make her hate him as he hated her. Hated her for making him feel this way. Hated her beauty, her kindness. Hated her fierce, delightful spirit that reveled in all that he could do to her. Hated her for doing this to him. He closed his eyes as his breathing calmed. It had hurt him to hurt her like that, to leave her in real sadness. But she deserved it, he told himself, for maddening him, for driving him insane with her. Fucking her again and again in his mind he ignored her utterly as he walked out and upstairs. He couldn't look at her for he knew what his look would betray - want you my sweet, my darling, my beautiful one, my precious, my dearest, want you, need you, ache for you, yearn for you, burn for you, hurt for you, need you so my precious love.

**Lovett: **

He couldn't have meant it, that was all; she crow barred the reassurance into her mind as the tears subsided and she began to look around her. The world was waiting and there was work to be done. Her tender, stinging skin made her sensitive to everything and when she heard someone whistling nearby she almost jumped out of her skin.

"Toby!" Guiltily, she realised that she had forgotten about the boy's very presence and wondered where he had been all night; probably passed out on gin somewhere no doubt. "Where you been lad? Gave me a fright you did."

"Sorry mum" the boy grinned up at her; a grin that quickly faded - "What happened mum?" dear boy, so concerned, it took her a moment to realise -

"What -?" oh yes, she must look rather a mess. She hadn't considered it, "It's nothing lad, never you mind."

"Did he hurt you mum?" the boy persisted, eyes flicking to the ceiling, "If he did I'll-"

"Hush now love," she sighed, "Have yourself a pie".

As the boy settled down to a breakfast of gin and yesterday's pies she scribbled down a couple of notes and put them in his hand, giving him the address.

"Yes mum, please mum, but 'ave you got any money for it mum?"

"Go ask Mr Todd now, and give him that one -" indicating one of the notes - "Get along with you now".

"Yes miss" and the boy was gone.

Alone again she washed her wounds with the last of the gin, shivering in tickling pain at the sting. She wondered if any customers would notice that she was working in nothing but underwear and grinned to herself, customers indeed - maybe her lack of clothing would actually get her some.

**Todd: **

He stormed up the stairs as though he wanted to break them, hurled himself into the room and slammed the door behind him. He leaned back on it, eyes closed, mind whirling as though with a hundred chattering voices. You need her, they teased, you want her, how she tastes, how she feels, how she screams, why resist? You want her, need her, care for -

"Shut up!" he yelled, seizing the first thing that came to hand and hurling it across the room. There was an explosion of glass against the wall that shattered through the fog in his mind.

It was a good reason to move, to cross the room and see what he had broken this time. A puddle of silvery glass and water, catching in the light. And daisies. She had brought him daisies. He picked the sorrowful little flowers out of the glass, suddenly so sad. he didn't want this, this - tenderness, this surge of feeling almost sharper than desire, biting at him with hot little teeth. How could he; he did not, could not, care for her, to allow himself to feel - no! It was unthinkable. She had maddened him with lust and that was all.

He was still torturing the flowers, pulling them to pieces when the knock came on the door. He stood up quickly and strode over to his chair, trying to look like a man who had not just been playing with flowers.

"Come in"

It was the urchin, rather wary of him he thought and it was a comforting thought.

"Please sir" stammered the brat "Mrs Lovett sir - she asked me to give you this sir."

He took her note with a scowl and read it with a smirk - "That was me only good dress. Sending the boy for new ones. Give him some cash love, I'm strapped. Only your whore, p.s. better give him a good bit, funny how clothes don't last long these days.

He choked back the urge to go straight back downstairs and strangle her. "Only your whore"? Was she mocking him? He almost admired her nerve, foolish though it was of her.

"A moment boy" he scribbled a reply on the back of her note, scooped up the wrecked flowers and gave them to the boy.

"There. And you can tell Mrs Lovett she can keep her flowers. I want nothing from her."

He hated lying.

**Lovett: **

She took the note off the boy, sending him on his way, as though she were a princess accepting a letter from a suitor; though when she had got it she had been clearing away the breakfast things she noticed had mostly been eaten after all. When she hadn't been looking, she supposed. It occurred to her that he must think of her more than he let on, to take such pains to disregard her.

"My dear sweet Mrs Lovett" she read, marvelling at how his pen, like his voice, could drip with sarcasm "Your wish is my command as always, Todd. P.s Bring me flowers again and you won't like where I stick them, my sweet."

**Todd:**

It was a difficult morning . After his brush with Pirelli in the days before half of London seemed to have come to regard Sweeney Todd as the best barber in the city. The customers flooded in with thoughtless consistency and no consideration for the throbbing in his prick. Which only worsened when he caught snatches of her singing now and then, surprisingly sweetly, downstairs, leaving him with no time or respite in which to relieve the pain of it. Finally the time rolled on towards midday and the flood abated - of customers at least, not desire. He sank wearily into the chair and waited for her to come up, knowing that she would do so. He agonized about going to her, but could not be so easy on himself or do something he knew so well would gratify her. He felt half insane with anticipation, racked with need, vacant with obsession.

It must have been the latter that she saw when she came through, having knocked gently and entered without waiting for a reply.

"Still brooding then love?"

She was so hard to read, he thought; was that irritation, mild anger, boredom or concern? He didn't reply. Let her work it out herself.

"That judge again" she said with a sigh "Huh".

He paused before replying,

"Mrs Lovett" he sighed, "Did I tell you you were a bloody wonder?"

"Mr Todd?"

He grinned ferociously, she hadn't caught the menace in his voice then.

"I have a problem my pet" - playing with her now - "And what do I do when I have a problem? Why, I believe I seek the advice of my dear Mrs Lovett, with her ever practical and yet appropriate suggestions, do I dot?"

Her forehead crumpled adorably as she tried to work out where this was going;

"Yet here I am, still troubled and for once she fails to come up with the solution. It just won't do my dear". his fingers toyed meaningfully with the buckle of his belt.

"Ah". Understanding shone in her face, like a light and, as he still didn't move from his chair she scuttled to him, dropping to her knees at his feet, a tentative hand on his leg. He smiled to see her, face turned to him adoringly, her lips slightly parted. How easy she was, how disgustingly eager to please. He despised and loved it in almost equal measures. He smiled at her indulgently.

"Oh my dear, how easy you are" she was almost, if not quite, just where he wanted her. He took hold of her by the hair, dragging her to her feet, as he rose himself -

"Really; far too easy" - pushing her roughly into the chair on the last word, moving quickly around to tie her arms to it with the leather straps hanging at the sides.

The satisfaction of having her like this, bound and helpless, her eyes damp but shining as they flickered quickly after him, was unbearably intense. He remembered his promise to torture her, to cause real and terrible pain for as long as he could hold out. Somehow he felt, regretfully, that it wouldn't be for long. Not while the joys of her flesh were still so new. He sprang onto her, eyes blazing, kneeling over her on the chair, crushing her a little probably, but not caring, burying his hands in her hair, kissing her brutally, crushing her mouth beneath his in his demand for her lips. It felt so good just to kiss her, to feel her kiss him back, feel her writhe beneath him, wanting to hold him but unable as she struggled beneath him; breathing in the maddening, intoxicating scent of her; roses and fire, bread and sweat and arousal. He kissed her deeply, hurting her sweet lips with a passion he had never known. In these moments there was no Lucy nor had ever been. And it felt good.

He kept her in the chair for maybe three hours, mostly ignoring her, watching out of the window for his other prey. Or pretending to, sometimes one sometimes the other. At intervals he would fuck her and admire his artistry as the patterns calmed upon her skin. She didn't know that he could see her reflected in the window he pretended to look out of, musing on how terribly happy she made him, hoping to god that she didn't know.

Eventually he released her and sent her to fetch drink. When she returned he found himself permitting her cautious, almost chaste embrace as she rested her head briefly on his shoulder. He shook her off quite gently, his mind quite peaceful, scheming, wanting to kill -

"Why doesn't the judge come?" he asked.

She told him to wait.

Soon enough he saw the vermin just outside and kicked her out of the room. She hardly cared, she was almost content.


	7. How I've Lived Without You

Thanks for all the nice reviews

**Thanks for all the nice reviews! There's actually some PLOT in this section (a little bit of non-consensual sex towards the end though – be warned! Otherwise keep up the feedback! Am taking requests!**

_Chapter 7; How I've Lived Without You all These Years_

**Lovett:**

Now this was familiar, she thought; him slouched brooding at this table whilst she poured the gin. Fifteen years and more of wanting him back, wanting to finish what they had broken off all those years ago. How different things were now, she thought. Back then she had hardly looked further than her dream of having him. Now she felt that what had once seemed like it would make an end of things was, after all, only the beginning.

Yet how similar things were still. Again, she was helping him deal with the body upstairs. Only now it was a dead one. Again he was proving utterly hopeless at helping himself. And again he was proving himself hopeless at gathering her intentions.

But catch on he did and it delighted her beyond measure to see him look at her, for once not endeavouring to hide his admiration, grinning at her delightedly and taking her in his arms. It half surprised her that he could dance, and yet it felt so very right. She only wished that he really meant it when he had asked how he'd lived without her all these years. Yet, positively giddy with the attention he suddenly showed her she chattered on until she realised what they were doing - they were _playing. _It was not something she had imagined him capable of, this somewhat cruel and whimsical playfulness. It was not something she had imagined herself to be capable of and yet here they found themselves, laughing together at the thought of putting people in pies.

She wasn't sure she had ever been so amused in her life and knowing she had made him happy to some degree just made it perfect. For several moments they were caught up with laughter. It would subside, they would catch each other's eye, it would start again. Eventually they ran out of the energy to laugh any more.

"Ah my dear" he sighed "Whatever would I do without you?"

"Hmmm" she smiled, "Whither and die?"

"I might" he said, his face hard to read "Never mind though my pet, you could always put me in a pie."

"Now Mr Todd" she smiled, more prettily than she knew, her eyes lowering almost shyly "What use would you be to me in a pie? I'm sure you taste much better alive"

"No doubt my love - and as for you -" he pressed her against the wall, cleaver still in hand, holding her by the throat as he kissed her, biting playfully at her lips -

"Mmmm" pausing "- Gravy".

"Oh well, that's dead romantic you are" she chided. He was, she noticed, quite incapable of stopping something once started and continued to kiss her, more deeply now, his hands upon her, pulling the lace down off her shoulders, baring her breasts and caressing them roughly in leather clad hands, cold yet burning against her skin. She moaned softly, not wanting to loose herself too quickly.

"It's a good idea Mr Todd" she gasped, as he released her lips to bite at her breasts, "But how exactly did you plan to - aaah - to do it?"

"I was thinking hard and fast against the wall, love"

"No - ugh - I meant" - gasping - "getting the body to the bake house"

"You can leave that one to me love" He was kneeling at her feet now, hands sliding up her skirts - "Now tell me - how exactly did you plan to - shall we say - puree the gentleman?" she couldn't reply for a moment, shifting her thighs against the fingers that tormented her so deliciously. He pinched her clit viciously -

"Well?"

Trying to keep from drowning she murmured "And you can leave that one to me my love".

"Why my dear Mrs Lovett", pushing her skirts up around her waist and standing up to look at her - "I do believe you've done this before". She could have melted with happiness as well as lust at the respect as well as passion with which he looked into her eyes.

"Well" she said simply "What did you think I did with him?" He grinned;

"Hush now", and silenced her with his lips, pushing into her as he did so. He took her as promised, up against the wall, but slowly at first, almost gently, relishing every second of sensation. Her cunt clenched, pulsing around him as his body moved against hers, demanding and shuddering, taking her with long deep thrusts that filled her so completely that when he pressed his hands against her bruised shoulders she came almost instantly; drowning, spilling her cries into his mouth as he spilled into her for what seemed like forever -

Forever was never long enough.

**Lovett:**

Several gins later she lay curled around him, her head on his chest, his arms around her shoulders. She didn't object at all to the silence, it seemed quite comfortable, as it usually was between them; but she still didn't mind when he broke it.

"Can I ask you something pet?"

Did urchins piss in the streets? He actually wanted to know something about her? She had to berate her foolish heart for wanting to leap up out of her throat.

"Anything love"

"Mr Lovett -"

"Ah" well he was bound to have asked sooner or later, "Well, like I said love, if you were listening -"

"I wasn't"

"Why did you think I married him? Lived off him for weeks I did; good for business too."

"So" she couldn't work out if he sounded contemptuous, amused, sarcastic or all three; "-you _rose _to the position of pie - seller?"

"Hey, it's me own business now you know and it wasn't always doing so bad neither. Anyway, it's an improvement on me previous situation".

She was sure she heard him smirk at her attempt at delicacy.

"My dear Mrs Lovett, am I right in suspecting that before you rose to the lofty heights of pie - wench you were nothing but a common little Fleet Street strumpet?"

She bounced onto her knees and hit him with a pillow, suppressing a laugh at the stunned look on his face;

"Really Mr T, the things you do say -" she paused and sighed, shaking her head, "-Worked the Strand I did"

"Oh is that right?" he raised an eyebrow at her, grinned that unpredictable grin and - hit her back with the pillow. She squealed and grabbed the other from under his head and for a few moments they were lost in a flurry of feathers. When they subsided he was kneeling over her and she was picking feathers out of his hair.

"Really my dear -" he smiled, pinching her nipple playfully, yet hard enough to make her squeal - "I had no idea you had so - noble - a background".

"I know love, it's a hard life but someone's got to."

"Oh you loved it, you slut" he growled, kissing her hard again, fresh flickers of lust glimmering in his eyes.

"What about you then?"

"Me?" He frowned, the shutters falling a little - "Not much to tell pet, father was a barber, his father before him. Got bored after that." He paused a moment, "Unlike that poor bugger in the bake house, someone far enough back probably was barber to a king, you never know."

She marvelled at the roughness of her hands as they ran over her bruisingly. , pressing harder, his touch growing in urgency as his kisses turned to bites that nipped at her skin like untamed animals, making her cry out brokenly and lean into him all at once.

"My dear little whore" he sighed, "So really it could be anyone here in my place, hmm? Fuck anything wouldn't you, slut?"

She opened her mouth to protest but he pressed hard on her lips with his fingers.

"Now don't argue my dear or I'll have to hurt you, and I don't think you could take it again quite so soon could you?" She shook her head, knees trembling, painfully aware that she was squirming shamefully, rocking her hips in need. It took so little - she wondered if he wasn't perhaps partly right after all, just a little. Anyone could have taken away the ache of lust, filled the painful emptiness, but not so perfectly. Nor could they have eased the ache of love, that was his alone, if only she dared say so.

"Good. So if I just leave you here and fetch the Beadle to take my place..." he had moved his hand enough for her to speak -

"Ewwww!"

He laughed that strange, short laugh;

"You're right of course my dear, disgusting of me, yes." They laughed together, though it did not decrease the desire and she found herself still writhing beneath his hands - which slipped away from her suddenly, and distressingly.

"I'll just have to share you with my friends then -" she frowned a moment before understanding dawned in the gleam of light from the razor's edge. Two razors, one in each hand, she gasped, still unused to how quickly he could move when he wanted to. The blades danced over her quickly, gently almost, waltzing smoothly with her skin, kissing her, flirting with her, only hurting after the cuts had been made. One remained in his hand, that pressed down on her arm, another caressing her throat as he slipped into her, easily.

She wondered - it was the thought of a second - when he could have got so hard. Here she was, spending her life trying to get him to notice her and pillow fighting could get him painfully turned on? Not that she was complaining and she pressed up against him as fiercely as she could as he thrust into her wildly and deeply, never once moving the razor from her throat, the blade humming against her skin when she cried out in completion and delight as a final savage thrust sent him snarling over the edge.

He looked at her strangely - in a way she could not read and kissed her once before placing the razors beside the bed and turning over to sleep. She too was exhausted and in near heaven when, this time, he let her hold him. She was sure too that she heard him mutter-

"'night love" -

-but she couldn't have said for certain if he had wanted her to hear.

"What are you looking at?"

He made her jump; how did he do that - with his back to her? She had been looking at him - curiously in the gathering dark, wondering something - well she had been looking for an excuse to ask -

"Can I ask you something?" she began sleepily.

"If you must"

"How did you get that streak in your hair?"

There was a silence and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer.

"Always had it" he said eventually.

"No you didn't, i would have noticed."

"Used to dye it didn't I?"

Well - that appeared to answer it, and his gruff, half asleep voice told her just to leave it. But her curiosity, once peaked would not let her be sensible.

"Well, how did you get it then?" she persisted. He sighed, and turned over to look at her, half annoyed, half - amused.

"If I tell you will you shut up?"

"There's a chance".

"Had it since I was little. My sisters used to play at shutting me in the cellar you see - for a game -"

She almost wanted to laugh at the image.

"Oh, you poor little thing!" she managed.

"Indeed. It was alright though - 'cept one day they got called for whilst I was down there - in the dark. Didn't unlock the door. Must have been down there hours before they remembered. When they did - well, I had this" and he gestured brusquely to the white in his hair. She couldn't help it, she laughed softly,

"Oh you poor little thing!" she spluttered, running the errant white strands fondly between her fingers, happily aware at this moment that only she could say such a thing to Sweeney Todd "Demon barber of Fleet Street" and live to tell the tale.

"Quite"; he gave her a hard, final kiss, low on her forehead, rolling over and grumbling "Now shut up and let me sleep woman."

"Yes dear, you get to sleep love, there's a good -"

"Lovett!"

"Yes love?"

""Shut up and sleep".

"Yes love".

She curled back around him, face pressed carefully into his shoulder (it was hard to find an angle that wasn't too sharp on him), and she soon fell asleep.

**Todd:**

Fifteen years, fifteen years of living hell, dreaming, he had convinced himself, of the day he could return to his wife. That had been hard. Harder almost than the daily life of the colonies and its daily grind of monotonous, physical labour; yet others seemed to reserve their sanity, just, and he had felt he must be losing his more and more each night. For it was the nights that plagued him, almost more than the days, the dullness giving him time - too much time - to agonize over what might have been.

It was alright by day. Eyes open he could visualize clearly the idyll he wanted to dream of, the pretty golden pair who waited patiently at home. A fond and comforting thought that, if he had been honest with himself, left him cold.

But at night it was her who danced through his dreams, burning him with the fire that surrounded her in his mind. She was there when he closed his eyes, the harpy, the witch, the devil - woman, her face branding its smile onto his fevered brain, mocking him, killing him with the memory of her kisses. Her body, soft and warm, would press itself against him in the lonely dark, promising more than comfort, leaving him burning.

Was it possible a moment could be replayed so many times and lose non of its fire? Rather, brightening until it seemed that in those seconds the whole world had come away from its edges. It was unbearable to think of how painfully he had wanted her, how, if he had again been honest, he had always wanted her, how he wanted her now. How her eyes had inspired thoughts in him no gentleman should even have, let alone admit to. Thoughts Benjamin Barker could never have had and so it was that, away from the company of gentlemen, where everything was admitted to, he felt himself steadily turning into someone else.

He felt somehow that she had always known that he was. That she could see through him with those piercing harlot's eyes, see that there was more to him than foolish, dithering Benjamin Barker. Felt that she knew the man he was becoming without having ever met him. And yes, he hated her for it. Hated her with an intensity with which he had never loved his wife. Hate that boiled up out of him in the night, staining the bed sheets in the dark.

Needless to say, he hardly slept. Surrounded by the snores and groans of fellow prisoners sleeping and wanking he would lie silent, his mind seething with all the things he wanted to do to her. Things unspeakable, some of them, even in this company. He would kill her again and again in his mind, trying desperately to erase her from his heart. So much easier to hate her, passionately if it had to be so, rather than contemplate the alternative.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of living hell, tormented by longings that there was little chance of satisfying. As he lay in her bed tonight he shuddered at the memory and held her tight. He almost wanted to wake her and tell her, then punish her for the sufferings she had caused him. Wanting to ask her if she knew she had been there with him all the time, the demon by his side as he worked, in his arms at night, intoxicating him through the heat with the softness of her skin, the fire of her hair. Breaking him deeper into madness with her lips hot on his, wanton and whorish as she pressed herself against him when she was not there. He kissed her shoulder gently.

It wasn't that there had been no outlet for their desires out there. He had learned early on, from painful experience, that anything wanted could be taken from a fellow prisoner, and would take occasional recourse to this resort with a cruelty that made his fellows fear and oddly respect him.

And there were the times when a female prisoner, in punishment for some misdemeanour, had been sent to the mens' quarters for the night. He remembered the first girl, a slight, pretty little thing, pale and dark, with eyes that, until then, had been wide and innocent. He wondered if her crime could have been any worse than his own - and doubted it.

The room had slept maybe twenty men then, and all but one of them had used her before the night was out. He had been the first - somehow there was never any question of that. he had fucked her brutally, enjoying her screams and pleas for mercy. Glad to take her while she still bothered to scream and to struggle. He couldn't imagine it would be any comfort to her to know that it was not really her he had raped. In the dark it had been easy to imagine her softer and warmer, her hair glinting redly in the moonlight. Easy to hear another voice screaming in his ear, begging him to stop, and he used her all the more viciously for it.

Such moments of relief were, however, only too brief, and too rare and he held his lover close in the dark as though he meant never to let her go again. All those years of planning, hating and longing and he had only just begun to act out every unspeakable thing he had ever wanted to do to her. No, he wasn't letting her go, not now, not ever. She was his. Just his.


	8. But My Senses Tell me To Stop

This follows on a bit clumsily from the last section

_This follows on a bit clumsily from the last section. The second part is just a wee bit M rated! ;-)_

_Chapter 8; But My Senses Tell me To Stop_

**Lovett:**

This had happened once before, she mused; her lying here, holding him happily in the dark. or - no, not him, not quite, he had felt so different back then, he had been so different back then...

She remembered. It had been rather late one evening and she had been almost asleep when she heard an almighty banging on the door. This was not usually a good sign and a sensible woman might have laid low until it went away. Well then she wasn't a sensible woman. She had thrown on a robe, grabbed up a rolling pin and gone to investigate.

"Good Lord - Mr. Barker! What are you doing at this time of night?" she had exclaimed, opening the door to this rather wretched figure that she would, she knew, never have refused. The smell of gin as he slumped in told her enough. She sighed deeply and locked the door quickly behind him, hauling him up off the floor and into a chair, quickly fetching a glass of water. He peered at it as though it amused him.

"Now then" she tried, "What you been up to then?"

"Party...thing" he gurgled, head swaying worryingly as she fetched more water - "Had...had...shot of gin..." she rolled her eyes,

"More than that I'll say love. Drink." pushing the glass at him.

"Nasty." he said, pouting, "Bad water" but drank it anyway, to her relief. For half a moment he tried to look serious and waved a finger at her in a way she felt he imagined to be important.

"Mrs Lovett..." he drawled " I..." voice still serious "I really really need...to pee". Oh hell's piecrusts; was he starting to drop trousers in her front parlour? She grabbed a mixing bowl, forced it onto him and turned away discreetly. A few moment later he had turned back, smiling faintly sheepishly.

"Really love" she shook her head dismayed, but unable not to be amused, "Why are you here? Your wife'll be upstairs worried sick about you." It pained her, having to say it but knew he would probably never forgive her if he - god forbid - remembered this in the morning.

"Nuh..." he slurred, "bad stairs. No good Lucy. Cross with the barber. Uh-oh." He pulled a pout of such solemn childishness that she could not help but laugh.

"Wanna stay...wi' you" he mumbled on "Mrs Lovett nice...no shout at the Benjy..."

Oh hell. Still it wasn't as though she hadn't always hoped for this, albeit under rather different circumstances.

"Oh for heavens sake" she pulled his arm over her shoulders and began to manhandle him towards the bedroom "Come on the you, let's get you to bed". had he just been staring at her chest when it heaved in a sigh or had his little "Mmmmm...nice..." meant something else? It had been too odd.

She had let him slump across the bed, limbs everywhere, pulling his boots off and pulling up the covers.

"You sleep love, I'll be on the couch if you need anything."

He mumbled something she didn't quite catch.

"What was that love?" She caught it the second time -

"Cuddle" he whined, flailing limbs slightly like a beached seal. Well, what was she to do? She got in beside him, reeking as he was and let him cuddle up to her like a little star fish. She had looked fondly down and sighed and he had beamed back up at her.

"Mrs Lovett?"

"Yes dear?"

"I love you."

"That's nice dear" it didn't go this way in her dreams, it really didn't.

"Nuh...I do. I really love you."

Deep sigh.

"I love you too pet".

"Hmmm... you're lovely ...and - nice, and...lovely and - and you smell like a pie."

"That's nice dear. You smell like gin."

But he had passed out heavily on her shoulder. Somehow it had still been a lovely night, as he lay, warm and soft and reeking in her arms.

In the morning she had been woken by a sharp tapping on the door. She had left him in bed making soft burbling, snoring sounds and gone to answer it, aware that it was late to still be not yet dressed. It was Lucy. Bugger. She looked all watery eyed and troubled. Poor dear.

"Please Mrs Lovett -" she had burst out "It's my husband - he didn't come home last night - he went out with some friends and - and he never came home, oh what am I to do?"

Ah.

"Oh - that is, well-"

"You haven't seen him have you?"

"Me? Gracious love, why ever do you think -?"

A dawning look of horror in Lucy's eyes alerted her to the apparition that had appeared at her shoulder peering, mole - like at the morning.

"Ah." Snipped Lucy.

"Morning love" his voice was rough and, as yet, unfamiliar, his clothing in devastating disarray.

" I see." Snip snip, "I must say Mrs Lovett I find your poor eyesight most curious". Luckily - or not - she was saved from answering.

"Got a bit tipsy love" he grunted "Mrs Lovett has been..." glancing sideways, more shamefaced than he ought to be "...most kind".

"MmmHmmm." Snip snip, "I am sure. Benjamin I will see you upstairs shortly. Good day Mrs Lovett".

And away she swept. He had looked at her like a naughty schoolboy.

"Uh-oh. Think she thinks I've done a naughty" he mumbled. She held her head in her hand and shook it.

"Oh, love" she sighed, with half a laugh, "Get your shoes on and bugger off, eh?" She went and got them for him. he looked almost sad to be going.

"Good luck love". He had smiled at her,

"Thank you Mrs. Lovett" he had breathed out through the haze of hangover "Thank you so much my love". He had kissed her as he left, loudly on the forehead, fumbling his hands as though he wanted to touch her but didn't know what would be right in the circumstances - and then he was gone, leaving her spinning and giddy in the early day.

_My love._

**Todd:**

He awoke to the sound of singing, groaned and peered out of bed to seek the source and make it stop. It was no good, this curious comfort. He was going to stop feeling vengeful and miserable if he kept waking up like this, refreshed in the dim morning light.

"Morning love"

Her again, not giving him a moment's peace. That damnable, beautiful woman, distracting him from his purpose (Mourn Lucy, Kill the judge, mourn Lucy, kill the judge) - with breakfast, apparently. He didn't deign to reply, he knew she'd babble on regardless - just looked at her sideways, as though he tolerating the domesticity, but barely.

"Brought you breakfast love" she said, unnecessarily. He found himself loving the half shy, uncertain happiness in her voice and in her smile -

"Eggs - with little dippy soldiers". He couldn't help it, damn her, he had to laugh.

"Didn't know we had soldier on the menu love". Did she actually giggle? She could be quite grotesquely adorable sometimes, her arms pale and close as she put down the tray. He breathed in the warm almost spicy smell of her, trying not to notice the way her hair tickled her shoulders like mischievous tongues of fire, unable to ignore her when she made the lust rise up in him so powerfully. He seized those soft arms with fingers that bruised carelessly, and swung her over, back onto the bed. She smiled up at him so sweetly, inviting him to - yes, good - to hurt her, he hadn't lost sight of himself so much then. He slit her chemise quickly up the front, unwilling as ever to suspend the pleasure. The deep wound on her chest had opened again, giving him an idea.

"Stay there" he ordered. She opened her mouth to protest, confused, but he didn't give her time, leaving the room to head quickly upstairs and come back bearing certain accoutrements of his trade.

She hadn't moved, not much, merely having now wriggled completely out of her clothes. The slut. Still it was excuse enough to hit her once, twice, maybe, a couple more times, enjoying seeing her flinch and choke back tears. It was painful how hard she made him and he rubbed his prick against her to let her know. She wriggled in lust beneath him and he hit her again. He would teach her to do this to him.

"Thought I told you not to move" he snarled. he hadn't, but he did love to see her confusion, daring her to argue. Despising her for not daring, however sensible it was.

"Here. Drink." he pressed the bottle of gin into her hand, "Trust me" he grinned devilishly "You're going to need it". She did trust him he thought, surprised, at least a little - to do what he said so unceasingly and without protest. But she looked at him questioningly when she handed the bottle back and he pressed her onto her back, deceptively gently, pouring a little more gin onto her chest and washing away as much of the blood as he could.

"Now my dear" he began, in a purring mockery of his professional voice "This is really a very nasty injury. However did you get it?" He chuckled to see her eyes widen and a soft "Oh no -" push out of her lips to see him begin to thread his needle. He grinned, all teeth.

"Oh yes" - and began to stitch the gash in her skin as though it were merely fabric. She screamed and screamed at the piercing pain.

"Now then my dear, do keep still, wouldn't want to distract me now would you?" and he purposefully pierced her several times in the breast, laughing quietly to hear her stifle her screams and tremble violently with the effort not to move. He stitched quickly and skilfully, delighting in her pain but feeling quite virtuous - after all, he was helping her in a way. When he was finished she was quite still, her face and neck stained with the tears that had poured from her in silence. God but that was good; how she quaked and gasped beneath him, inviting any cruelty he could inflict. He had wanted her too badly to draw out her pain and putting down his tools pushed her legs apart; she cried out then in desire as well as agony - ah, his favourite combination!

"Shhh" he hissed, one hand at her throat while his other released his throbbing prick to drive it fiercely into her, gasping and growling out savage cries as he fucked her viciously until the pounding in his chest exploded into her and he sank, relieved onto her body, able once more to put his weight on her chest without splitting it open. She continued to whimper for a few moments, in pain and release, the cries eventually subsiding and her lips pressed lusciously against his shoulder. How much could he continue to hurt her and use her and still see that love shining in her eyes, he wondered?

"Eat your breakfast love" she whispered.

More then. Always more.

_Sorry it's been awhile! Please review and let me know if yous want more!_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Lovett:**

It had felt like a long fifteen years. Of course, she had nothing to compare it with and couldn't have said if it mightn't have felt different under different circumstances. But these were the only circumstances she had and time passes slowly when you wait. And she had been waiting, much as she hated to admit it, often angry with herself at the foolish but insistent knowledge that one day he would come back. She hoped that when (not if) he returned, she would never crumble and tell him all that she had had to do to stay here, right here where he could find her. Looking after Lucy for as long as she could, keeping the room free for him, though she could have rented it easily enough - no-one really cared if a place was haunted if the rent was cheap enough, but no - it had to be there - waiting for him as she was, working day and night to keep the shop when business did nothing but steadily decline , selling herself to pay the rent when pies did not suffice - rather than up and move somewhere more affordable. She honestly didn't care about any of that.

She cared about the dreams though, the almost- visions that plagued her both sleeping and waking. Perhaps it was just an over - active imagination but it made little difference. The pictures she saw, the sensations - were such that she felt she might as well have been there with him - indeed she would willingly have suffered with him if it would have helped at all.

Practical and sensible as she was it did not take her long to realise that she had gone a little crazy with it. She didn't suppose it mattered; oh well, she sighed, seeing her brain in tatters on the floor, that's that then. And she shrugged and got on with it.

Sometimes she tried as hard as she could to imagine what it was like, the heat, the work, exhaustion and torture such as she had only read about. To imagine herself there instead of him as though she could somehow transfer the burden to herself. There was no question of his not being still alive - there could be no question of that in her mind.

In vivid, painful flashes she would see him, shivering and hurting, alone and aching with pain and fear. She would stretch out in her mind to reach and comfort him, holding him and soothing him with her skin and her kisses, whispering to him that she loved him, that it would all be alright, that she was here, she'd look after him, that it was alright now - see love? That she was his in any way he wanted, if he wanted her at all, though she knew it was presumptuous to imagine that he did. So she contented herself with whispering to him, a warm, embracing blanket of endearments, as though she could let him know, at least, that he was loved, and with deep, unwavering devotion.

Sometimes she would drag him back here in her mind so that she woke up beside him, their bodies warm, entwined together in the watery morning light. She would end every day whispering a good night, I love you and hope that he somehow heard. Sometimes she would cry to know that he was not there and could not hear, and sometimes she slept.

Sometimes her thoughts would take a different turn and she would wonder how such a soft, hapless creature could possibly survive such conditions. She would recall his open, smiling face with a curious pang that she would tell herself was fondness merely, until she found that her hand had strayed between her legs at the recollection. She would make a half hearted attempt to stop herself, not to sully such a good, kind man with such horrible thoughts, unworthy of him, knowing that he must barely think of her himself, let alone think of her like that. She felt almost guilty and the guilt was a powerful aphrodisiac she did not need.

In her mind it had been his beautiful hands that touched her, caressing her gently, touching her as she had never been touched, looking at her all the time as though he loved her, though she was not quite sure she knew what that looked like. Still she felt his lips hot on hers as his fingers ran little circles around her pulsing, slippery clit, felt his hands pressing tenderly at her breasts, teasing her nipples into painful hardness and cooling them with his lips - her breathing would quicken and she would groan, not knowing what name to whisper.

Perhaps after all it was worse and really he hated her. He had seemed so angry, so different that last time she had seen him and yet somehow she had felt almost that he was forcing himself to push her away. Perhaps after all he did love her, at least a little, but was having trouble resisting her, she chuckled that thought away. And yet. How his face had hardened and his eyes spat baked fire; they had beaten her down and beat her down now as he forced himself inside her in her mind and she enveloped him hotly and desperately, clinging to him with passionate relief at feeling whole again - her fingers plunged deep inside herself, poor replacements for him but making her twist and cry out into her pillow all the same, drained and warm and alone when she was done, wishing so hard that he would come back to her that surely someone had to hear it.

She would try to convince herself, often with the aid of gin, that maybe the colonies weren't so bad. That he was fine. That she did not have to tear herself apart with wanting to rescue him. That he was fine. Just fine.

Like she was.

**Todd:**

She had fallen asleep in front of the fire again. He hadn't come searching for her, just walked past on his way upstairs and she was there. But he stopped when he saw her, arrested by the sight, glad that he could look at her without her reading anything into it.

So he stood and stared as though in a trance, watching the firelight play upon her skin, bathing it golden and warm; watching the rise and fall of her chest - and trying to look away. She wriggled in her sleep and let out a soft and happy hmmm sound as though she were dreaming sweet dreams. She stretched in her sleep like a contented cat. He would have given anything at that moment to know what she was dreaming - felt almost angry at not knowing, almost jealous of whoever she was with in her sleep.

Moving so softly, so as not to wake her - she worked so hard and was so tired sometimes - he knelt down beside her - it was alright, he told himself, if there was no-one around to see that he cared he could tell himself that he didn't, not really.

Gently, he stroked her hair back from her forehead, letting it tumble softly through his fingers, smiling with a pleasure that made him want to cry - she was so lovely - why couldn't he just tell her? She made him feel so weak - he was weak, and he hated her for it. He fought the urge to shake her awake and reassure himself of his heartlessness by being cruel to her, chewing her up and spitting her out as it was so easy to do.

But he didn't. It was as though the world was holding its breath, suspending one silent, golden moment like a drop of light in a cup of blood.

Gently, so gently, he traced her lips with his fingers, exploring her face beneath his hands, sliding off her skin. Gently, still gently, he kissed her lips like a prince in a story with a princess he did not wish to wake. It was wrong to think like this, so wrong, but he knew that the dream would fade soon enough.

He sighed against her lips, relieved by her soft snores from the sudden terror that she was not really asleep and would catch him out. He kissed her pale forehead, warming his cold cheek against her warm one, lingering as though he could live this moment forever.

But it was a stolen moment, unreal and out of time. Just another cruel trick of the world, dangling the promise of happiness in front of him in so perfect a form. Either it was falling away or he was. He heard himself speak as though it was not his own voice - or as though it was but he was detached from it; heard his treacherous voice as he stared broken - heartedly into her face.

Heard it whisper "I love you" before he fled the room, terrified of what he had done - of what it could have meant.

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far and I will try to update more quickly next time!**


	10. See How We Bathe Each Others Wounds

Chapter 10; See How We Bathe Each Other's Wounds

_Chapter 10; See How We Bathe Each Other's Wounds_

**Lovett:**

He had ignored her completely all day.

**Todd: **

She had been on his mind almost all day, there had been no cure, save to attempt to ignore her completely. It hurt.

**Lovett:**

It hurt. He had sent a note down that morning, with Toby; "Upstairs. Now. On the floor". She despised herself for answering such a summons so swiftly. But not to have done so would have been unthinkable.

**Todd:**

He had despised himself for giving in so swiftly and letting her know, however curtly, that he needed her, but not to have done so would have been unthinkable.

**Lovett: **

He hadn't even spoken to her. Just nodded at her to do as ordered. She had. He had hardly even looked at her, hardly even touched her; just pushed up her skirts and pushed into her, fucking her roughly and quickly – coldly even. Then he had ordered her out in tones of utter disgust.

**Todd: **

He hadn't even been able to speak to her, afraid that if he did he would tell her everything, admit to feelings he had persuaded himself he didn't even have. He had hardly even been able to look at her, afraid of losing himself in her beauty, unable to touch her, afraid he would never let her go. He had fucked her because he needed to, but wanting too much to feel her body against his, to allow it. He had ordered her out of the room, disgusted at her willingness to be used like an utter whore and disgusted at himself for needing to use her.

**Lovett:**

He had been there in her mind, when she made the bed, following the bloody patterns in the bed sheets, reading the story that they told, the feel of the razor on her skin as he had kissed her, feeling him inside her, hearing her own screams in a map of crimson lines.

**Todd: **

She had been there when he sharpened his razors that morning, reflected in the blades, her face catching in their light, twisted in a scream as he held them to her throat. He felt her beneath him, sweet victim, squirming against the blade even as she welcomed it, hearing his own sighs echoing in the razor's edge.

**Lovett:**

He had danced with her across the room, as she baked in the afternoon, reflected in the light from the oven, her own dear demon, straight from the fires of hell.

**Todd:**

She had died with him that afternoon as he slit throats and sent fresh supplies plummeting into the room below, shooting up light from the oven, reflecting her face in the flame, his own dear demon, straight from the fires of hell.

**Lovett:**

She had missed him so much, she felt pathetic and worn down with it. When she closed the doors for the night she had sat down at the table, with a candle against the night and a gin against the sadness, and, unexpectedly started to cry.

**Todd:**

He came down in the evening (for gin of course) and found her in tears, unguarded, at the table in the front room. He had missed her all day and it didn't please him to know it, but it felt so strange to see her cry when he hadn't (really) caused it. He was too worn down with the day to really think and unexpectedly found himself taking her silently in his arms, hoping it was alright not to ask her what was wrong.

**Lovett:**

She was glad he didn't ask what was wrong. Anyway, as soon as he was there the reason no longer existed. Her tears subsided and she felt herself preparing inwardly for him to go away again. But he didn't. He held her against him, her head on his chest, stroking her hair, gently, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

**Todd:**

It felt so strange – he had to stop himself from thinking too deeply about it. It was wrong – somehow – it had to be – to find himself caring about her, comforting her as he had once comforted Lucy – a lifetime ago. But it was different now – better somehow, he thought, guiltily, he couldn't explain it – she just seemed to fit better in his arms. He could be himself with her, whoever that was as he could never have been with Lucy. He wanted to drag himself away from this terrible temptation to happiness that she was – but she looked up at him then and smiled, and he couldn't. He was terribly afraid suddenly that he might cry.

**Lovett:**

She had been afraid to move, afraid to break the moment, sure he would be angry with her. But she had, nervously, looked up at him, letting him know it was all better now. The look her gave her had made her heart ache – almost as though he was going to cry. She wanted to help, painfully and, not knowing any other way, moved to kiss him.

**Todd:**

He did not – could not – pull away, her lips were so delicious, her kiss so sweet, he found himself responding with more passion than he had wished to show – like this anyway. He kissed her hungrily, hours of pent up desire seeping slowly out into her mouth. He moved his hold on her so as to take her up into his arms and carry her, like a child, through to the bedroom.

**Lovett:**

Confused again, she did as she always did; accepted his actions unquestioningly; though for a moment she was so sure that he would drop her that she almost laughed. She choked it back and smiled instead –

**Todd:**

A smile that made him ache for her so sweetly, as he laid her down on the bed as gently as possible. She was so precious, so dear to him, he was afraid it might show in his face.

**Lovett:**

From the way he looked at her now she could almost have imagined that he loved her. From the way he released her from her clothes so gently, caressing her so softly she could almost have imagined that he knew and cared what she liked, playing her body as though it were an instrument, creating soft little whimpers of song.

**Todd:**

There was such music to her sighs, he wondered he had not heard it before. He felt as though he had never touched anyone like this; even Lucy, when he had tried to make her like it had just looked uncomfortable and impatient if he had taken the time to do so. Lucy – it was just a word to him now.

**Lovett:**

She whimpered softly, trying not to cry out for pleasure as his lips travelled her body, following the map of scars he had drawn there, sucking her breasts no almost lovingly. She gave up trying to understand.

**Todd:**

She made him feel like he had never touched a woman before in his life, and perhaps after all he hadn't, certainly not like this, so safe in the knowledge of her body and how it worked, yet still able to be surprised when she began to return his caress, tentatively at first, asking permission with her eyes as her fingers went to work on his shirt.

**Lovett:**

It was strange to realize that she had never seen him naked before, let alone had the chance to discover him in this way, with her fingers and lips. He was so – beautiful, that was the only word for it, smooth and hard and laced curiously with little white scars. The candle light flickered across his skin like sunlight on snow, she followed the dance of light with her fingers, running them up his spine and making him gasp, his prick twitching hard against her thigh, grinding against the fabric that separated them and then no longer.

**Todd:**

He felt almost innocent somehow beneath her touch, wondering how he allowed it, when no-one else had ever been able to get that close to him before. Knowing, as he kissed her deeply, running his hands over her slowly, that he trusted her. Trusted her completely in fact, the only person he had ever known who he could trust so completely with everything. Whatever he may refuse to say to her, she could refuse him nothing, would never lie to him or confuse him with anything other than the absolute honesty that he read in her face.

**Lovett:**

She knew that a part of her was still waiting for him to change and hurt her. She wouldn't have minded, only wished that she knew. His touch was so soft, though his hands were so hard, she could half have believed that he really loved her, but refused to trust in a thought that would have made her so happy. No-one had ever touched her like this before anyway, and she couldn't know what it meant.

**Todd:**

Couldn't know what it meant, the words that rose within him, that he couldn't quite say; my sweet, my dear, my precious beautiful beloved; want you, need you, worship you, burn for you – always and forever my pet. He couldn't find it in him to hurt her for now and felt lost and helpless without his anger to hold onto. He held onto her instead as she –

**Lovett:**

-Unfastened his trousers with the skill of years of practice, opening her legs beneath his hands, ready and needing and so hot as he -

**Todd:**

Slid into her gently, hardly hurting her at all. She lifted her body into his in welcome as though this was how they should have been all along;

**Todd/ Lovett:**

Moving in a rhythm that was their, not his and not hers, yet both, yet one. Each aware almost more of the other than of themselves, as they had been when they danced, moving once again to a tune that no-one else could hear. The candlelight cast one shadow up the wall, a tenderly monstrous thing that sighed and fell apart at one time, silent, breaking cries echoing through the room and out into the dark beyond.

**Todd:**

Sank down onto her and rolled over, taking her with him, holding her close, resting his chin on her head so that she could not see the truth in his eyes as she –

**Lovett:**

Whispered "I love you", afraid to say so but unable to let it go unsaid.

**Todd:**

Let it go unsaid, afraid to say so. But could not hate her for it now and held her tighter, kissing the top of her head in reply. He felt her wriggle against him emitting a happy little "Hmmm" sound that all but broke his heart.

**Lovett:**

She reached over him and snuffed out the candle with her fingertips, pulling the sheets up around them so that they could lie together in the dark and both pretend to sleep.

**Sorry 'bout the lack of plot here! Hope you still liked!**


End file.
